Читать книгу Port O' Gold - Louis J. Stellman - Страница 6

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"Blessed be the Saints. It is the Punta de Los Reyes." The speaker was a bearded man of middle years. A certain nobleness about him like an ermine garment of authority was purely of the spirit, for he was neither of imposing height nor of commanding presence. His clothing hung about him loosely and recent illness had drawn haggard lines upon his face. But his eyes flashed like an eagle's, and the hand which pointed northward, though it trembled, had the fine dramatic grace of one who leads in its imperious gesture. He swept from his head the once magnificent hat with its scarred velour and windtorn plume, bending one knee in a movement of silent reverence and thanksgiving. This was Gaspar de Portola, October 31,1769.

Near him stood his aides. All of them were travel-stained, careworn with hardship and fatigue. Following their chieftain they uncovered and knelt. To one side and a little below the apex of a rocky promontory that contained the little group, Christian Indians, muleteers and soldados crossed themselves and looked up questioningly. In a dozen litters sick men tossed and moaned. A mule brayed raucously, startling flocks of wild geese to flight from nearby cliffs, a herd of deer on a mad stampede inland.

Portola rose and swept the horizon with his half-fevered gaze. To the south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again into vanishing and reappearing shapes of mist.

Far to the northwest a giant arm of land reached out into the water, high and stark and rocky; further on a group of white farallones lay in the tossing foam and over them great flocks of seabirds dipped and circled. Finally, along the coast to the northward, they descried those chalk cliffs which Francis Drake had aptly named New Albion, and still beyond, what seemed to be the mouth of an inlet.

Dispute sprang up among them. Since July 14th they had been searching between this place and San Diego for the port of Monterey. "Perhaps this is the place," said Crespi, the priest, reluctantly. "Vizcaino may have been amiss when he located it in 37 degrees."

"Yes," spoke Captain Fernando de Rivera, "these explorers are careless dogs. One seldom finds the places they map out so gaily. And what do they care who dies of the hunger or scurvy--drinking their flagons in Mexico or Madrid? A curse, say I, on the lot of them."

Portola turned an irritated glance of disapproval on his henchmen. "What say you, my pathfinder?" he addressed Sergeant Jose Ortega, chief of Scouts.

"That no one may be certain, your excellency," the scout-chief answered. "But," his eyes met those of his commander with a look of grim significance, "one may learn."

Portola laid a hand almost affectionately on the other's leather-covered shoulder. Here was a man after his heart. Always he had been ahead of the van, selecting camp sites, clearing ways through impenetrable brush, fighting off hostile savages. Now, ill and hungry as he was, for rations had for several days been down to four tortillas per man, Ortega was ready to set forth again.

"You had better rest, Saldado. You are far from well. Start to-morrow."

Ortega shrugged. "Meanwhile they mutter," his eyes jerked to the indiscriminate company below.

"When men march and have a motive, they forget their grievances. When they lie in camp the devil stalks about and puts mischief into their thought. I have been a soldier for fourteen years, your excellency."

"And I for thirty," said the other dryly, but he smiled. "You are right, my sergeant. Go. And may your patron saint, the reverend father of Assisi, aid you."

Ortega saluted and withdrew. "I will require three days with your excellency's grace," he said. Portola nodded and observed Ortega's sharp commands wheel a dozen mounted soldados into line. They galloped past him, their lances at salute and dashed with a clatter of hoofs into the valley below.

Young Francisco Garvez spurred his big mare forward till he rode beside the sergeant. A tall, half-lanky lad he was with the eager prescience of youth, its dreams and something of its shyness hidden in the dark alertness of his mien.

"Whither now, my sergeant?" he inquired with a trace of pertness as he laid a hand upon the other's pommel. "Do we search again for that elusive Monterey? Methinks Vizcaino dreamed it in his cups." He smiled, a flash of strong, white teeth relieving the half-weary relaxation of his features, and Ortega turning, answered him:

"Perhaps the good St. Francis hid it from our eyes--that we might first discover this puerto christened in his honor. We have three days to reach the Punta de los Reyes, which Vizcaino named for the kings of Cologne."

For a time the two rode on in silence. Then young Garvez muttered: "It is well for Portola that your soldados love you. … Else the expedition had not come thus far." The sergeant looked at his companion smolderingly, but he did not speak. He knew as well as anyone that the Governor's life was in danger; that conspiracy was in the air. And it was for this he had taken with him all the stronger malcontents. Yes, they loved him--whatever treachery might have brooded in their minds. His eyes kindled with the knowledge. He led them at a good pace forward over hill and dale, through rough and briery undergrowth, fording here and there a stream, spurring tired horses over spans of dragging sand until darkness made further progress impossible. But with the break of day he was on again after a scanty meal. Just at sunrise he led his party up to a commanding headland where he paused to rest. His winded mount and that of Garvez panted side by side upon the crest while his troopers, single file, picked their way up the narrow trail. Below them was the Bay of San Francisco guarded by the swirling narrows of the Golden Gate. And over the brown hilltops of the Contra Costa a great golden ball of sunlight battled with the lacy mists of dawn.

It was a picture to impress one with its mystery and magnificence. The two men gazed upon it with an oddly blended sense of awe and exultation. And as they looked the sunlight triumphed, scattering the fog into queer floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird suggestions of castle, dome, of turret, minaret and towering spire. One might have thought a splendid city lay before them in the barren cove of sand-dunes, a city impalpable, yet triumphant, with its hint of destiny; translucent silver and gold, shifting and amazing--gone in a flash as the sun's full radiance burst forth through the vapor-screen.

"It was like a sign from Heaven!" Garvez breathed.

Ortega crossed himself. The younger man went on, "Something like a voice within me seemed to say 'Here shall you find your home--you and your children and their children's children.'"

Ortega looked down at the dawn-gold on the waters and the tree-ringed cove. Here and there small herds of deer drank from a stream or browsed upon the scant verdure of sandy meadows. In a distant grove a score of Indian tepees raised their cone shapes to the sky; lazy plumes of blue-white smoke curled upward. Canoes, rafts of tules, skillfully bound together, carried dark-skinned natives over wind-tossed waters, the ends of their double paddles flashing in the sun.

"One may not know the ways of God." Ortega spoke a trifle bruskly. "What is plain to me is that we cannot journey farther. This estero cuts our path in two. And in three days we cannot circle it to reach the Contra Costa. We must return and make report to the commander."

He wheeled and shouted a command to his troopers. The cavalcade rode south but young Francisco turning in the saddle cast a farewell glance toward the shining bay. "Port O' Gold!" he whispered raptly, "some day men shall know your fame around the world!"